~ 12 steps for better living.

It’s exactly what you think it is…

One post on Step 3? Yuuup! That’s how it works. We make a decision and then we IMMEDIATELY get into action.)

So anyway, thanks to the University of Texas and the dear lord’s will for me…I spent the last several days penning out some pretty juicy inventory, and since we’re on Step 4, it’s a perfect time for me to share it with you.

Inventory (4th or 10th step) is meant to keep my house in order. That means that I don’t just shove down all the crappy things I’m feeling right now about getting rejected from yet another graduate program. If it’s burning me up inside, I have to take it to the paper. The pen is a mighty tool.

I always start inventory with a fear list, and I always do my fear lists the same way. At the top of a blank page I write, Dear God please help me be honest. Then I start writing, I fear (fill in the blank.) And I write I fear again and again until nothing else comes out. Here’s what it looks like:

I fear I will never find a professional home for my writing voice, and therefore, I will never be a successful ($$$) writer.

I fear that I will be an esthetician, doing facials on people who really don’t deserve to be touched by me, for the rest of my freaking life. (Note: I said, help me be completely honest, so don’t hold my grandiosity against me.)

I fear the future.

I fear that I will never find real financial security.

I fear that I’m not really as great of a writer as I think I am.

I fear that I am not enough.

I fear that whatever comes next will be scary.

I fear God’s will for me.

I fear being 40!

I fear dying.

I fear that JM will get a graduate degree before I do, and that he’ll be more successful than I am!!!

I fear failing, and that makes me fear trying.

I fear that God is busy and isn’t really paying attention to what’s happening in my world, and therefore, has maybe permanently screwed up my chances to be more educated.

Ok, that’s good for now. I start with a fear list because I am a human being who is driven, motivated, manipulated and eaten alive by fear. I need to get that on paper before I go one step further. When I’ve emptied that out, I start the inventory. I start it the same way I start a fear list. Dear God, please help me be honest. I’m resentful at (fill in the blank until nothing else comes out.)

Resentment actually comes from a Latin root meaning re-sentiment. So anything (negative) that I feel over and over again is a resentment and is worth looking it.

I’m resentful @ UT for not accepting me to their graduate program.

I’m resentful that I’m almost 40 and I don’t feel like I’ve found a professional home.

I’m resentful that I still, 11 years into my sobriety, feel like my worth is attached to what I do, what I earn, how I look, ect.

I’m resentful at myself for waiting until 6 weeks before the deadline to consider applying for a fully funded graduate program.

I’m resentful that figuring out my life feels like so much work sometimes.

This will be more than enough to demonstrate the power of the process. Here we go:

1. I’m resentful @ UT

Affects my self-esteem (I’m not good enough? Did they even bother to read my paper? Have they seen my recovery blog?) Affects my security (now that I did not get into grad school, I will definitely probably be homeless at some point, probably when I’m 70 and have no teeth left and can’t even get a job at HEB.) Affects my ambition (Uh, hello, do you know one famous [non-fiction] writer who doesn’t have an advanced degree?)

WHAT IS THE DEFECT OF MY CHARACTER GOD WOULD HAVE TO REMOVE IN ORDER FOR ME TO NOT HAVE THIS RESENTMENT?

This is a very important question. This is how I look at my part in things. I don’t always have to have done something to have a part. Sometimes my part is how I react to everything else when something happens in my life.

Well, God would have to remove my grandiosity for one thing. Also, my fear of financial insecurity and of the future. God would have to remove me thinking I know what’s best for me. God would have to remove my stubborn resistance to his (her, it’s) plan for my life. God would have to remove my tendency to turn everything into a big drama (homeless @ 70…a little dramatic please.) And most important, God would have to remove my fear of trusting God and myself.

Defects: grandiosity, fear, stubbornness, resistance, control, UNSS (unwilling to see that UT is just a spiritually sick organization, just like me, and that if there’s no hope for them, there’s none for me…bahahaaha! Just kidding, UNSS doesn’t apply to this resentment, but there are lots of resentments it does apply to!)

2. I’m resentful that I’m almost 40…

Affects: self-esteem, security, ambition

WHAT IS THE DEFECT OF MY CHARACTER GOD WOULD HAVE TO REMOVE IN ORDER FOR ME TO NOT HAVE THIS RESENTMENT?

Well… God would have to remove the grueling sense of urgency I feel about everything I do. God would have to remove the picture I have in my head of what 40 is supposed to look like. God would have to remove me thinking I know what god’s plan is for me, and how to best achieve it. God would have to remove my lack of gratitude for all the amazing things I have accomplished in life. God would have to remove the part of me that is exacting, demanding, harsh, derogatory and downright degrading..you know why, because those same attitudes I apply to myself get applied to everyone I love and care about, and I never want the people I love to feel judged in the way I am judging myself.

Defects: Grandiosity, unrealistic expectations, people pleasing (I would be so much more respected if I had a Ph.D) control, lack of gratitude, lack of humility, lack of compassion (for myself and others.)

3. I’m resentful that I still attach my value to what I do, what I have…

WHAT IS THE DEFECT OF MY CHARACTER GOD WOULD HAVE TO REMOVE IN ORDER FOR ME TO NOT HAVE THIS RESENTMENT?

Oh dear lord, now we’re getting to the meat of it. God would have to remove that terrible hole in me that thinks it can only be filled, I can only be enough, if I have enough, do enough, accomplish enough. It’s that fucking race inside of me that keeps me like a rat in a cage, constantly striving for others approval and recognition, and I’m here to tell you (and myself) it ruins every good thing in your life. God would have to remove my inability to just be a human among humans, my self-centeredness, my rigidity, my fear god and of life and of you and of me. God would have to remove my people-pleasing, my manipulation, my martyrdom. God would have to remove that little tiny seed way down deep inside that keeps telling me, you are not enough, you are not enough, fuck you, you are not enough.

See how it works? I won’t bore you with the rest of my inventory, but I will say that nothing is more important that this process. Because I’m alcoholic, I have to get down to causes and conditions. These were things I drank and used over. I don’t have that solution as an option anymore, so I need a new way to stay comfortable in my skin, and this is it.

When I’m done with this process, I have a list of defects, but what I really have is a better idea of who I am, and what I’m working with. And that’s really important, because an alcoholic, I’m packing a little something extra. This stuff I wrote down here is what lives inside my head, if not consciously, at a sub-conscious level where thrums steadily through my life, and it can inspire me to make some very bad choices. I can easily get lost in it.

I have a long and torrid history with both my mother and my now dead father. One of the things my mother must have said to me a million times in my life was, “you just don’t care.” In sobriety, as I wrote and wrote inventory, I was able to finally see that she was wrong. I am someone who cares very deeply (to a fault sometimes) about myself, others, and life in general. When you know who you are, you don’t have to own whatever else it is someone thinks of you. It’s a powerful gift.

Be kind to yourself today. If you’re full of junk inside, write an inventory.

I love reading your posts. I believe the lessons and tools learned in the12-step and recovery world are truly beneficial to everyone. After falling in love with a (now-recovering) addict and being introduced to the world of recovery, I decided the Big Book should be required reading for everyone and that the 12 steps could be applied to life in general. Thanks for writing (and to my friend for sharing on fb). I’ll send out some extra prayers that your talented voice find a professional ($$) home..

I related to your post so much, especially the grad school stuff. Three years ago, I didn’t get into a program that I wanted really badly. I was so afraid of relapsing if they rejected me that I almost didn’t apply. (‘They’re going to laugh at my application, because I’m just a stupid stewardess.’) But my sponsor said, “What if you applied and didn’t get in and were completely fine? What would that look like?” I decided that it would look like me applying to this government job I had always dreamed about. I signed up for the first-round test as soon as I got my rejection from the school. I made it halfway through the recruiting process, and right before I was going to find out if I made it to the final round, I asked myself the same question: What if I don’t get in and I’m completely fine? What does that look like? It looked like me applying to grad school again, but by this time, I was interested in a different field of study. I got my rejection from the government, applied to two schools and got into both. One of them was UT–the other is the best in the world in this field, and they offered me a scholarship. I just graduated last month and am now in the scary phase of looking for a job before I run of school-loan money, but I know for a fact that I went down the right path. THANK GOD I didn’t get into that first grad school, looking back now I can see that it was the wrong program for me. In this case, rejection was God’s protection. Keep going!

Nina this was fabulous. The clearest, most authentic writing I’ve read in a long time. You DON’T. Need a freakin’ degree. Just continue to write about what you know better and more honestly than anything else…your journey to spirit and the readers will come – we long for this kind of honesty and clarity. This is the only true thing about great writers – and you have it.